


the things we won't let settle

by lepidopteran



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: 2 character studies for the price of 1, Caduceus POV, Caleb eats a mango, Caleb loves and appreciates his friends, Gen, I'm still processing the boat arc ok, M/M, Mr. 20 Wisdom Clay, Platonic Cuddling, Reading Aloud, caleb-cad dynamic could b read as platonic intimacy or nonsexual romance idc, spoliers up to ep 48
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-18 15:50:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18252998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lepidopteran/pseuds/lepidopteran
Summary: Everyone has something to offer, everyone has something they want, and eating a mango is as inscrutable to one man as Archaic Zemnian is to another.





	the things we won't let settle

> Have we ever felt this way before?  
>  Like the things we've weathered such might decay to something more,  
>  Like the freshness, excitement might somehow give way  
>  To something like wisdom or truth.  
>  It's the things we won't let settle but let set  
>  And the best books of our lives haven't been written yet. _  
> _

Caleb loves the sea. This is one of the first things Caduceus learns about him, one of the first True things.  
  
On the long road south from Shadycreek Run, Caleb Widogast remains most of the time in Lady Mardun’s second carriage, so that Caduceus can’t even pass the time by reading his face. He emerges at night to silently set about his work of raising the strange tent-bubble and laying his silver thread in a careful circle around their campsite. He tends to take the long middle watch, with Nott or Beau at his side. At mealtimes he eats with his head bent low over his bowl, shoveling his food into his mouth and excusing himself abruptly from the circle ‘round the fire.  
  
In Zadash he speaks more freely, as his friends gently but insistently pull his tongue from between his teeth, as they dress the most apparent of Caleb’s wounds: his guilt over his friends’ imprisonment; over the loss of their Mollymauk. Fresh wounds weeping blood red and fluid, easily seen and easily swabbed away by Beau or Jester’s relentless concern.

In Zadash, Caleb buys reams upon reams of paper; empties his purse of gold and cloisters himself in his room for three days only to disappear to some library for another four. He seems to take much comfort in the presence of his cat, curled around his neck more often than not. It might be said that he livens up, but to Caduceus’ eyes he only changes from a half-dead man to a living man with a shroud laid over him.  
  
These are the observations Caduceus makes of Caleb, and they are all true, but he _learns_ nothing of the man.  
  
Caduceus has spent his whole life around, more than anything else, grief. Grief that comes without warning to double you over in pain. Grief that sinks in its teeth to poison you with a misery that kills slowly. Grief that rushes through like spring wind and leaves you empty. Grief so old and comfortable that it softens into a tender and lovely shadow of compassion.

Grief is a natural and essential state of being. Of course Caleb grieves. But when Caduceus reaches out to touch and try to trace the thread of Caleb’s grief, to envision how it winds through his body like vines or veins, he feels only the impenetrable density of a past like packed earth, too rootbound to allow new seeds into the soil, much less a probing touch.

When Caduceus reaches a recognition of a Truth he feels it almost as the sound of a bell, the resonance from another heart reaching his, whether its nature be kind or cruel or hopeless. If Caleb’s heart is striking a bell, it must be muffled.

Until they reach the shore of the Lucidian sea.

As the cart crests a hill and they catch sight of the blue expanse for the first time, Caduceus asks the horses to slow. _Water is the opposite of fire_ , Jester informs Caleb, and Caduceus glances over his shoulder just in time to see Caleb meet Jester’s eyes with a look like a scolded dog. His gaze darts away but his face doesn’t settle, mouth twisting oddly. The expression lies somewhere on the boundary between shame and longing.

Caduceus turns this observation over a few times like wet compost, mulling on it. But the road ahead demands his attention, and he puts it out of his mind by the time they spill out of the cart onto the long strip of sand and weathered stone. He’s preoccupied by the alien sensation of sand between his toes, so different from the loamy, well-fertilized soil of the Grove.  
  
Caduceus is not sure how much time has passed by the time he looks up from his own feet and out to the sparkling blue water, where a thin line of pink flesh lies buoyant on the gentle tide, red hair coiling out in strands like corrupted seaweed.

The feeling reaches Caduceus at the same moment a wave laps out to touch his toes, and it climbs from his feet up, up to his heart, where it strikes a bell and shimmers along his bones. In every curve and hollow of Caleb’s shape resting on the water Caduceus sees peace, an unsinkable peace that radiates out in waves and clings to the movement of the endless expanse of water.

Caduceus stands for minutes and lets the feeling ebb and flow against him, the chime of bells a gentle but insistent rhythm. It breaks only when Fjord breaks the water, popping up next to Caleb, who yelps and splashes like a cat in a bath.

Bracing himself against the unfamiliar cold and wet, Caduceus paddles over, and searches Caleb’s glowering face for the lingering signs of delight at the caress of saltwater.

And here at last is a Truth of Caleb Widogast. In words, Caduceus can only put it this way: Caleb loves the sea. Loves.

*  
  
So Caleb is above decks whenever he can be, wind whipping his bright hair—far cleaner than Caduceus has seen it, washed by frequent swims and wavy from the salt. He sits many days with a book in his lap and his back to the _Mistake_ ’s slightly splintered side, wherever he will not be underfoot, and lets the spray cast by the waves beating against the ship dampen his hair and the back of his neck.

Aboard the _Squalleater_ , with its larger and rowdier crew, Avantika’s iron leadership and the constant possibility of action, he indulges himself less often and keeps to his cabin below.  
  
Caduceus goes down to knock on Caleb’s door one afternoon, halfway to Darktow. “Caleb?”

“Come in, Caduceus.”

The door creaks open to reveal Caleb cross-legged on the floor with not one but three books open around him, hair tied back and sleeves rolled up to his chapped elbows. There are twice as many freckles across his nose than there were one month ago, warmth to his cheeks. He looks alive. Caduceus almost forgets what he came to say.

“We’ve crossed some kind of special reef,” Caduceus says. “The crew are having a … ceremony? They’re drinking and singing songs and jumping into the water.”

“I may not know you well yet,” Caleb says, closing the book in his hand but keeping his thumb between the pages to mark his place, “But that doesn’t sound like something you would enjoy, Herr Clay.”

“Not at all. Thought you might, though.”

Caleb gives him a puzzled look.

“They’re drinking and singing songs and jumping into the water,” Caduceus repeats. “You do all those things. Sometimes.”

“That is fair,” Caleb says, and replaces his thumb-bookmark with a scrap of paper. “I might as well see what the fuss is about. Too much noise to read, after all,” he mumbles, voice trailing off as he wanders above decks.

Caduceus follows and stands warily outside the splash radius, watching Caleb shout and swear as Beau pushes him over the side, then surreptitiously smile when the sea rises to catch him.  
  
*

Caduceus is glad to get the solid earth of Bisaft Isle under his feet, to eat fresh fruits that aren’t conjured, to visit beehives and amuse Jester. He would’ve liked to find a quiet, leafy patch of ground where he could try to get in touch with the Wildmother, but his attention keeps slipping back to the ship, where their crew waits still shaken and hurt by their long absence.

Where Caleb waits, refusing breakfast and locking himself away from the water and the wind. Caduceus understands that everyone sometimes needs their time alone, and Caleb has a lot to process—the impossible library they left behind; Nott bleeding out in Jester’s arms.

Still, after spending his fair share of time alone, Caduceus has become accustomed to doing everything together, the seven of them. He kept looking over his shoulder for Yasha during their time separated from her in Halas’ keep, and when they returned it was such a relief to take her hands and feel her presence. After discovering how long they were away, Caduceus is reluctant to leave any one of them out of reach.

So he tells himself that he’ll find a moment with the Wildmother later, perhaps in the crow’s nest, and makes his way back as soon as their errands are complete.  
  
Walking alongside him, Nott carries her weight in incense in a large sack.

“Is that for Caleb?”

“He wants his cat back.”

“When you see him, make sure he eats his breakfast,” Caduceus says, pitching his voice low. It’s no secret that they’re all worried, but Caduceus knows that Caleb would hate to find out he’s been discussed behind his back.

“You bet I will, Mr. Clay.”

Caleb does not appear at dinnertime, and Caduceus fixes a plate of food and brings it to his cabin door, but the thrum of magic from within is so strong—recognizable as the tent-bubble and the silver thread, looped not once but twice around the small room—that Caduceus doesn’t even knock.

He’s relieved to see Caleb above decks later that night, eyes reddened but voice steady. He approaches Caduceus just as he’s about to climb to the crow’s nest. “Do you like a good book?”

Something turns over in Caduceus’ gut and after a moment of grasping he recognizes the feeling as embarrassment; a feeling he had almost trained out of himself after years of teasing from his brothers and sisters. So he answers as vaguely as he can while remaining honest, doesn’t mention how long it took him to make his way through the three books he’s read: a plant medicine manual, a genealogy of Wildemount families, a collection of fairytales.  
  
The conversation ends with an awkward formality, and when Caduceus rises from his shallow bow Caleb has already turned away. Caduceus runs his thumb over the periapt around his neck and stares at a tangle in Caleb’s hair, where he must have slept awry.

When he finally puts himself to bed, Caduceus finds the book on corrupted plants sitting on his hammock, as Caleb promised. He watches it sway there for a moment before reaching out to touch the cover. The leather at the corner flakes slightly under his touch. He delicately turns it open to a random page. The words are hand printed blackletter, tiny and precise, and when he leans in and squints at them the language is what one would expect of a tome nine hundred years old or more. Caduceus doesn’t like how the daunting thought of reading it makes him feel.

He sets it aside.  
  
That night his dreams ramble strange and directionless, from the dark Savalierwood to the bright Lucidian Ocean, through the Quannah Breach and the Wuyun Gates, across endless barren farmland and endless teeming seas, on an enchanted cart and a sinking ship, chased by guards, captured by pirates, plunged again and again deep under the sea to search unlit ruins for cursed baubles, thrown unwarned into a deathtrap library, into the jaws of a dragon—ending with nothing but an ancient book falling apart in his hands.

It’s only when he wakes to the sway of the ship that he realizes the dream was not the labyrinth of disjointed events that dreams often are, but the reality of his life now. This journey by foot, carriage, cart, ship, spell and dream; a journey already months along, with no going back.

The Wildmother set him on this path, and when it led him to the sea he swam in it. If now it’s led him to a book, he shall have to read it.

*  
  
Caduceus goes down to the galley one morning in the final days of their journey home, contemplating which recipes will make best use of the new provisions they acquired on Bisaft, only to find Caleb seated at the table with a mango in one hand and a book in the other.

Caduceus pays no mind to the book at first, too focused on the mango, which hasn’t been peeled. At the moment that Caduceus appears in the doorway, Caleb is just touching his teeth to the fruit’s skin, about to bite.

Caduceus clears his throat and Caleb pauses with his mouth still open, slowly lowers the fruit. “Caduceus, hello.”

“Do you know how to eat that?”

“Is it hard?”

“No, no, it’s pretty squishy,” Caduceus absently replies, already opening drawers in search of his good paring knife.

“Rather, is it difficult?”

“Yes, because it’s squishy.” Caduceus sits across from Caleb and holds out his hand for the mango.

“Show me, then.” Caleb looks bemused but he lowers his book and watches Caduceus with something beyond polite interest.

Mango in one hand and knife in the other, Caduceus carefully runs the blade under the fruit’s skin. As he cuts it away in a long spiral, he explains, “A mango is a soft fruit, and if you go right ahead and bite into it, you’ll lose half the juice down your shirt-front and across the pages of your book.”

“I don’t want that.”

“The skin is bitter, too. Very disagreeable. You can remove it like this, but there are really two ways to eat a mango. This is how they do it on the Coast and further inland, wherever mangoes are imported. They’re harvested still underripe and by the time they reach the market they’re softer, as this one is, but they never reach full ripeness.”

Caduceus finishes evenly slicing the first mango’s flesh onto a plate, and reaches into a crate behind him to select another fruit, this one so ripe it bends to the shape of Caduceus’ hand the moment he touches it. He hands it to Caleb. “This one is real nice.”

“It’s very squishy. It isn’t rotten?”

“Not at all. It’s perfect. But you can’t peel this one, it would fall apart.”

“How do you eat it, then?”

Caduceus offers his paring knife, handle out. “Make a puncture at the top,” he instructs, “and suck out the flesh. This is how locals to the Swavain Islands eat mangoes.”

Tentatively, Caleb pierces the skin at the fruit’s more pointed end and brings it to his lips, features pinching as his jaw works to extract the pulp. Then his eyes widen. There are few things that please Caduceus more than the look on a friend’s face when they try a new and delicious food.

“Where did you learn this?” Caleb wipes his mouth, carelessly staining his cuff. “Surely there are no mangoes in that graveyard of yours.”

Caduceus shakes his head, amused by the image of the tropical tree with its large, shiny leaves rising out of the brambles of his herbs, fungi and flowers. “I learned it from the crew.”

“You talk to them a great deal,” Caleb blurts, then looks down at his hands, still wrapped around the wrung-out mango peel, as if he’d like to swallow his words.  
  
“There are a lot of interesting people here with a lot of interesting things to say.” Caduceus reaches out and gently takes the peel from Caleb’s hand, passing him a cloth to wipe away the sticky residue. “Even if they were dull or unpleasant, I don’t believe it’s ever a waste of time, getting to know the people around me.”

Caleb twists the cloth in his hands. “I spend most of my time thinking up ways to avoid talking to anyone, avoid getting to know them. That’s how it’s been for … a long time.”

“I did notice that about you, Caleb.”

When he looks up, Caleb’s eyes are almost plaintive. “It’s not—my behavior, or that aspect of it, is not by choice.”

“I noticed that too.” Caduceus tries to keep his voice soft, his demeanor undemanding.  
  
He must succeed, because Caleb’s hands relax from their deathgrip on the cloth. “I learn mostly from books. You probably noticed that as well, Herr Clay.”

“Well, yes.”  
  
It’s only then that Caduceus’ attention finds the book at Caleb’s elbow, and recognizes it as the one he has on loan. That’s right—he brought it down to the galley to pass the time while last night’s stew simmered, and made it only to the third page before the broth began to boil over.

Caleb must follow his eyes, because he asks, “Is it useful to you?”

Caduceus runs his hand along the peeling leather spine, and searches for the right way to confess his ineptitude. He likes to think that he can acknowledge his strengths and weaknesses, but something holds him back from admitting—to himself or to Caleb—that this book is beyond him.

Before he can find the words, Caleb says, “You told me you believe in fate, _ja?_ ”

Caduceus hums in assent, glad for a simpler question to answer.

“The books you selected in Halas’ library. One of them is exactly what I have been looking for, exactly what I need.”

“I’m glad.”

“It doesn’t have all the answers, mind you, but it will help me to move forward.” Caleb pats the cover of the book he gave Caduceus. “This one, I found. And I think—I hope—it will help you.”  
  
The empty crate he sits on scrapes the floor when he stands. “Thank you for teaching me how to eat a mango, Caduceus. It is nice to learn something from a living person.”  
  
“Any time,” Caduceus says. It isn’t until the door swings closed that he realizes Caleb is offering something.

*

It wasn’t a lie, what Caduceus told Caleb, that night on the _Squalleater_ ’s deck with their hair still singed with dragon’s fire: it feels good to be helpful. But he fumbled for the words, and those he arrived on felt too simple. He still turns it over in his head many nights later.

Caduceus made his life around being helpful. In the Grove he was helpful every day: helping the plants to grow and the bodies to decay, giving all he could to what animals wandered through, providing solace to the occasional mourner. Useful, important helping work.  
  
He’s never helped like this before. He’s never helped _people_ like this: people seeking something with the single-minded belief that they deserve it, whether that something be knowledge (Caleb) or balls (Fjord).

Selfishness is thrilling to witness.

More thrilling still to feel a kindred selfishness bubble up in response, knowing that whatever help he gives these new friends will be returned to him, for selfish pursuits of his own.

He surprises himself when he sits up abruptly, setting his hammock swinging and nearly hitting his head on the low beams of his cabin. His feet find the floor and carry him to Caleb’s door before his mind catches up with his body.

Still he hesitates just short of knocking, again feeling the thrum of the silver thread. Caleb sleeps in the cabin closest to the steps that lead above-decks, remaining all these weeks in the same cabin they shared their first night here, thrown in as Avantika’s prisoners. Caleb is a creature of habit, it seems. Hence, too, the silver thread.

A square of sky is visible above the steps, crowded with tiny points of light. Caduceus watches a falling star streak by and wonders who Caleb fears will invade his silent bedchamber, here on the endless, empty sea.

“Caduceus?”

The door swings open a sliver at first, then halfway, revealing Caleb’s dishevelled hair and sleep-swollen eyes and the dagger clutched in one hand. It’s a strange picture. Caleb seldom draws his dagger.  
  
Caduceus turns away from the stars. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.” He glances again at the dagger. “Or frighten you.”

“No, no, it is alright. I was up, reading.” The door opens fully. “Nott is on watch,” Caleb adds, as if to explain his wakefulness. He’s wearing a long, loose nightshirt that Caduceus didn’t know he owned. When they slept on the road Caleb wore his scarf, coat and boots to bed. “Come in, please.”  
  
“I should let you get back to your reading, and we can talk in the morning.” But when Caleb moves aside, Caduceus steps over the silver thread anyway.  
  
Caleb doesn’t ask why he’s here, just sits on his cot and tilts his face up to look at Caduceus, eyes tired but expectant. Rather than loom over Caleb, Caduceus lowers himself to sit cross-legged opposite his human friend. It’s then that he realizes the book is in his hands.

“Oh,” he murmurs to himself. “How did this get here?”

Caleb, apparently assuming that the question is directed at him and not whatever ineffable forces guide Caduceus’ hands in the absence of his brain, replies, “I am assuming you brought it here, seeking my expertise.”

“Your expertise,” Caduceus repeats, still trying to work out what exactly led him to bring a book to Caleb’s cabin in the middle of the night.

“ _Ja_ , expertise. I am good at few things, but I would say mucking through very old books is one of them.”

“ _Oh._ ” Caduceus smiles broadly as the pieces click into place, relieved to have an explanation. “Thank you, Caleb.”

“What for? I have not even looked at the book yet.”

Caduceus lays his hand over the book’s cover, feels the cracking leather warm to his touch. “You’re right. I do need your expertise. You seem real good with books, Caleb.”

Caleb, who a moment before was scratching at his forearms under the long sleeves of his nightshirt, brings his hands together between his knees and twines his fingers. “ _Ja,_ I am alright. Thank you.”

They fall silent for a moment as Caduceus searches for the words to express his predicament. Then Caleb says, “It’s a difficult book, yes?”  
  
Caduceus nods vehemently, provoking a soft huff from Caleb that he thinks could be a laugh.

“Forgive me if I assume, but were you, ah—embarrassed?” Caleb leans in a little closer, eyes meeting Caduceus’ for the first time that night. “It really is a difficult book. Most people you meet would have a hard time of it. I am just a very strange and warped human who makes it his business to read such things.”  
  
“I should have asked for your help sooner,” Caduceus confesses. “I’ve been alone for … many, many seasons. I’m used to sticking with what I know. To be frank, I’m a little frustrated that the Wildmother brought me to this book.”

Caleb is silent for a good long moment, giving Caduceus the opportunity to really study the mildew blooming around the collar of his nightshirt. It’s familiar from somewhere, and by the time Caduceus remembers that it’s a sort of fungus he more often sees on paper, Caleb is speaking again.

Caduceus catches only the last word, which is “— _ja?”_

“ _Ja,_ ” he repeats, and then, “I’m so sorry, what was that?”

“I said it’s a good thing the Wildmother also brought you to me.”  
  
“Oh. _Ja,”_ Caduceus says again. He wonders if the paper mildew found its way to Caleb’s nightshirt from a book, and which was the culprit. “Does that have something to do with the book?”

Caleb sighs a little. “Tell me what’s hard for you to understand.”

The question pulls Caduceus away from his fungal contemplation and back to the troubling matter of his own ineptitude, but he soon finds it’s easier to talk about with Caleb’s prompting. “All of it,” he admits. “I can tell what I’m reading is important, but by the time I finish a sentence I’ve forgotten the beginning. The letters are small, and it’s hard to sound out the words.”

Caleb slides down to the floor as Caduceus speaks, and by the time he’s finished Caleb is sitting beside him, reaching out to set his hand on the book alongside Caduceus’ own. “Would you like—would it help if I read it to you? Out loud?”

Expecting the dry and rote lessons he was subjected to when he first learned to read Common as a child, with endless definitions to memorize and lengthy explanations of grammar, syntax, spelling and root words, Caleb’s suggestion catches Caduceus off guard. “You would do that?”

“I would like to.”  
  
Caleb eases the book out of Caduceus’ lap and opens it against his own knees, tucks his hair behind his ears and begins to read. His accent curves around the words easily, and he explains that the book is written in an archaic form of Common local to the Zemni Fields, where Halas likely hailed from. He points out words closer to Zemnian than Common, and Caduceus realizes that many of the plants described are Zemnian themselves.

“ _In schort tyme such wicke wyrd turnyd helth into sekenesse. Thus alle this thyngys turnyng up so down, this graying land whych many yerys had gon wyl and evyr ben unstable was aftyrward be grace restoryd ageyn, as it schal be schewed_ …”  
  
Caleb’s voice is soft and low as forest humus, and as he reads Caduceus feels something new in the dense bramble he’s always sensed in Caleb’s heart; an ever so slight expansion as the roots shift and breathe. Caduceus wonders if this always happens when Caleb reads. He should be more attentive.  
  
Caduceus recalls hearing that human parents sometimes read books to children to put them to sleep, but he brims with energy as each word Caleb speaks falls into place, suddenly sensible, and he feels himself drawn nearer to what he seeks.

But Caleb soon begins to nod, jolting up every so often to read a few lines before dozing again. Finally his head falls against Caduceus’ arm and stays. Caduceus gently removes the book from Caleb’s lax hand and sets it aside.

“Wildmother,” he whispers into his friend’s hair, smelling campfire smoke, “thank you for bringing me this very strange and warped human.”

Half sleeping, Caleb slumps closer and murmurs, “ _Sei bitte still_ .”  
  
In some time the door swings open and Caduceus blinks awake, ears barely catching Nott’s light step. He raises a finger to his lips and Nott mirrors the gesture as she slips shadowlike across the small cabin to curl at Caleb’s side, laying her tiny clawed hand over his knee.

Three in a row they fall asleep, and Caduceus dreams that the gentle swaying current carries their ship over towering mountains and cavernous valleys, through dry fields of swords sprouting from the ground and dark hollows of whispering lights; dreams Caleb’s books catch fire and never burn; dreams Nott’s hair is a river glittering with wished-on copper pieces; dreams diamonds fall from Jester’s mouth whenever she laughs. Caduceus dreams paper mildew spreads from his mouth down his arms to his hands and across a dying blood-purple forest, turning it gray, then green, then blooming.  
  
*

On their last afternoon in Nicodranas, Caduceus catches Caleb glancing out to the city’s southern wall, where the water he first swam in lies beyond.

“Let’s go to the beach,” Caduceus says. “See the ocean.”

“We were _just_ there,” Nott says. “For _months_.”

“One last time.”

Fjord scratches his chin. “Not a bad idea. We should give Jester some time alone with her mama.”

“I am amenable,” Caleb murmurs, eyes still far away.

“Want to hit a tavern, Nott?” Beau offers, and Caduceus notes the look of deep gratitude that crosses Nott’s face, more heartfelt than he expected.

They part at the Open Quay, Caleb skirting as far around the Tidepeak as he can, and in the end it is only Caduceus, Caleb and Yasha who go down to the water.

They walk in silence side by side until they reach the familiar strip of open beach. Caduceus tugs off his boots and sinks his toes into the sand. Yasha wanders along the shore and plucks the pink and yellow verbena that peeks from the rocks. Caleb takes off everything he wears save for one thing, walks into the low tide, and floats.

Peace chimes in Caduceus’ heart, and he realizes—to help his friends, to love them, is also selfishness.

*

“It’s a long road, Caleb.”

“ _Ja_ ,” answers Caleb’s voice from the back of the cart, no doubt preoccupied with preparing his spells.

“Could be nice if someone read to me.”

“You only have to ask.” Caleb clambers up to the front of the cart, already opening the book from Halas’ library, which they’re now halfway through.

“Would you mind changing it up? Jester gave me a couple new books.”

“A cookery book?” Caleb asks quizzically, when Jester passes it forward. “I’m not sure you need my help for this one, Cad.”

“Maybe not, but it’s nice to hear your voice.”

Caleb hides behind his hair with a flustered huff, but he opens the book.

“ _Concerning the Preparation of the humble Mushroom, it behooves the Discerning House-wife to Depart from the Familiar Broths and Gravies, and seek Inspiration in such finer Fare as the Cuisine of Marquet_ ....”

**Author's Note:**

> opening quote from one of my top three cad songs: defiance, ohio - the things we won't let settle but let set  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzV06BgdXYs
> 
> this was going to be a normal moody ficlet but caduceus pov took over and now it's 14 pgs of mango eating ✌☮❀


End file.
